Chapter I: Part 1

PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE

PASTICHE
AND
PREJUDICE

BY
A. B. WALKLEY

NEW YORK
ALFRED A. KNOPF MCMXXI

_Reprinted, by the courtesy of the Proprietors,
from THE TIMES._

_Printed in Great Britain._

PASTICHE

Writing of Lamennais, Renan says: “Il créa avec des réminiscences de la Bible et du langage ecclésiastique cette manière harmonieuse et grandiose qui réalise le phénomène unique dans l’histoire littéraire d’un pastiche de génie.” Renan was nothing if not fastidious, and “unique” is a hard word, for which I should like to substitute the milder “rare.” _Pastiches_ “of genius” are rare because genius is rare in any kind, and more than ever rare in that kind wherein the writer deliberately forgoes his own natural, instinctive form of expression for an alien form. But even fairly plausible _pastiches_ are rare, for the simple reason that though, with taste and application, and above all an anxious care for style, you may succeed in mimicking the literary form of another author or another age, it is impossible for you to reproduce their spirit—since no two human beings in this world are identical. Perhaps the easiest of all kinds is the theatrical “imitation,” because all that is to be imitated is voice, tone, gesture—an actor’s words not being his own—yet I have never seen one that got beyond parody. The sense of an audience is not fine enough to appreciate exact imitation; it demands exaggeration, caricature.

Parody, indeed, is the pitfall of all _pastiche_. Even Mr. Max Beerbohm, extraordinarily susceptible and responsive to style as he is, did not escape it in that delightful little book of his wherein, some years ago, he imitated many of our contemporary authors. I can think of but a single instance which faithfully reproduces not only the language but almost the spirit of the authors imitated—M. Marcel Proust’s volume of “Pastiches et Mélanges.” The only stricture one can pass on it, if stricture it be, is that M. Proust’s Balzac and St. Simon and the rest are a little “more Royalist than the King,” a little more like Balzac and St. Simon than the originals themselves; I mean, a little too intensely, too concentratedly, Balzac and St. Simon. But Marcel Proust is one of my prejudices. To say that his first two books, “Swann” and “Les Jeunes Filles,” have given me more exquisite pleasure than anything in modern French literature would not be enough—I should have to say, in all modern literature. Mrs. Wharton, I see from the “Letters,” sent Henry James a copy of “Swann” when it first came out (1918): I wish we could have had his views of it. It offers another kind of psychology from Henry James’s, and he would probably have said, as he was fond of saying, that it had more “saturation” than “form.” But I am wandering from my subject of _pastiche_.

I was present one afternoon at a curious experiment in theatrical _pastiche_. This was a rehearsal _of_ a rehearsal of the screen scene from _The School for Scandal_, which was supposed to be directed by Sheridan himself. Rather a complicated affair, because Miss Lilian Braithwaite was supposed to be playing not Lady Teazle but Mrs. Abington playing Lady Teazle, Mr. Gilbert Hare had to play Mr. Parsons playing Sir Peter, and so forth—histrionics, so to speak, raised to the second power. To tell the truth, I think the middle term tended to fall out. It was easy enough for the players to make themselves up after the originals in the Garrick Club picture of the screen scene, but how these originals spoke or what their personal peculiarities were, on or off the stage, who shall now say? There you have the difference between fact and fiction. Lady Teazle and Sir Peter, having no existence save in the book of the play, are producible from it at any time, as “real” as they ever were, but Mrs. Abington and Mr. Parsons are not fixed in a book, and their reality died with them. Naturally enough the actual scene written by Sheridan “went” with very much greater force than the setting of conversations, interruptions, etc., in which it was embedded, for the simple reason that the one part had had the luck to be imagined by Sheridan and the other had not. But as a _pastiche_ this new part, written round the old, seemed to me on the whole very well done; there was hardly a word that Sheridan and his friends _might_ not have said. Just one, however, there noticeably was. Mr. Gerald du Maurier (as Sheridan) was made to tell Mr. Leon Quartermaine (as Charles) that, in his laughter at the discovery of Lady Teazle, he was not to expect the “sympathy of the audience.” _That_, I feel sure, was an anachronism, a bit of quite modern theatrical lingo. I should guess that it came to us from the French, who are fond of talking of a _rôle sympathique_. Mr. du Maurier, if any one, must remember his father’s delightful sketch of English people shopping in Normandy, when the artful shopwoman is cajoling a foolish-faced Englishman with “le visage de monsieur m’est si sympathique.” The Italian _simpatico_ is, of course, even more hard-worked. I felt sure, then, as I say, about the anachronism; but I am quite aware that it is never safe to trust to one’s instinct in these matters. It is by no means impossible that some one may triumphantly produce against me a newspaper or book of 1775 which speaks of “the sympathy of the audience.” The unexpected in these cases does occasionally happen.

And certainly any one who has tried his hand at a _pastiche_ of a dead and gone author will have frequently been astonished, not at the antiquity but at the modernity of the style. Language changes less rapidly than we are apt to suppose. The bad writers seem to get old-fashioned earliest—because, I suppose, they yield most easily to ephemeral tricks of speech. For example, Fanny Burney, who, I cannot but think, wrote a bad style, and in her later books (as Macaulay pointed out) a kind of debased Johnsonese, is now decidedly old-fashioned. But Jane Austen, whose style, though scarcely brilliant, was never bad, is not. A modern Mr. Collins would not talk of “elegant females”—but even then he was put forward as ridiculous for doing so. Jane was fond of “the chief of the day” and “the harp was bringing.” These phrases are _passées_, but I doubt if you will find many others.

Our sense of the past, in fact, may illude us. And that reminds me of Henry James’s solitary _pastiche_, his posthumous (and fragmentary) “Sense of the Past.” The “past” he deals with is, roughly, the Jane Austen period, and I think his language would very much have astonished Jane Austen. For one thing, they didn’t colloquially emphasize in her day as Henry James makes them do. I take a page at random:—“He mustn’t be _too_ terribly clever for us, certainly! We enjoy immensely your being so extraordinary; but I’m sure you’ll take it in good part if I remind you that there _is_ a limit.” Is this our ultra-modern Mrs. Brookenham speaking? No, it is Mrs. Midmore, somewhere about 1820. To be more exact, it is Henry James speaking with the emphasis that always abounded in his novels and his letters and his talk. Again: “I can’t keep off that strangeness of my momentary lapse.” That doesn’t sound to my ear a bit like 1820. Again: “It must have been one of your pale passions, as you call ’em, truly—so that even if her ghost does hover I shan’t be afraid of so very thin a shade.” Note the “’em,” the author’s timid little speck of antique colour, but note also how the speaker carries on the “ghost” figure—in a way that is signed “Henry James, 19—” all over. The fact is, Henry James, with his marked, individual, curiously “modern” style, was the last man to express himself in an alien style, particularly the more simple style of an earlier age. To write a pure _pastiche_ you must begin by surrendering, putting clean away your own personality—how otherwise are you to take on another’s?

I have no illusions about the essays in _pastiche_ to be found in the earlier of the following papers. If they do not always fall below parody, they never rise above it. Occasional fragments of authentic text will be recognized at a glance. “These Things are but Toyes.”

AN ARISTOTELIAN FRAGMENT

In the neighbourhood of Wardour Street, where the princes of the film hold their Court, a legislative code for film-making, a “Poetics” of the film, by some _maestro di color che sanno_, has long been yearned for. If only, they say, if only the _maestro_ himself, the great Aristotle, had been alive to write it! After all, kinematograph is Greek, isn’t it? It seems to cry aloud, somehow, for its code by the great Greek authority. Well, they little knew what luck was in store for them!

To-day comes a startling piece of news from the East. A certain Major Ferdinand M. Pinto, O.B.E., R.E., whether on military duty or on furlough the report does not say, has been sojourning with the monks of Mount Porthos, and, in the most singular manner, has discovered in the possession of his hosts a precious treasure of which they were entirely ignorant. It was a Greek manuscript, and, as the Reverend Prior laughingly observed, it was Greek to them. It seems that—such is the licence of modern manners even in monasteries—the monks have lately taken to smoking, and to using what in lay circles are called “spills.” Now on the spill which the Major was lighting for his cigar there suddenly stared him in the face the words

ὥσπερ Ἀγάθων λέγει

and the name Agathon thrilled him with memories of a certain Oxford quad, with dear “old Strachan” annoying the Master by wondering why Agathon should have said anything so obvious as that “it is probable that many things should happen contrary to probability.” To examine the spill, all the spills collected, was the work of a moment. They proved, at a glance, to be an entirely unknown MS. of the “Poetics,” more complete even than the Parisian, and with new readings transcending even the acutest conjectures of Vahlen. But, greatest find of all, there was disclosed—though with unfortunate _lacunæ_ caused by the monks’ cigars—an entirely new chapter inquiring into the structure of the Moving Picture Drama. Through the courtesy of the Pseudo-Hellenic Society I am favoured with a translation of this chapter, and a few passages, which seemed of more general interest, are here extracted.

“As we have said,” the MS. begins, “it is a question whether tragedy is to be judged in itself or in relation also to the audience. But it is another story (ἄλλος λόγος) with the moving pictures. For it is not clear whether they have an ‘itself’ at all, or, if they have, where this self is to be found, whether on the screen, or in the lens of the camera, or in the head of the photographic artist. Whereas there is no doubt (save in very inclement weather) about the audience. They are to be judged, then, solely in relation to the audience. And, for this reason, they do not resemble tragedy, whose action, we said, must be whole, consisting of a beginning, a middle, and an end. For the audience may arrive at the end of a picture play, and though, in due time, the beginning will come round again, the audience may not have the patience to wait for it. Some audiences prefer to arrive in the middle and to proceed to the end, and then to end with the beginning. By this means the general sense of confusion in human affairs is confirmed in the picture theatre, and in this sense, but only in this sense, the picture drama may be said to be, like tragedy, an imitation of life.

“Nor can it be said of picture drama, as it was of tragedy, that the element of plot is more important than the element of character. For here neither element is important. The important element now is motion. Any plot will serve the picture poet’s purpose (indeed most of them take them ready-made from those prose epics known as ‘shockers’), and any characters likewise (it will suffice if these be simplified types or ‘masks’). The essence of the matter is that all should be kept moving. And as moving objects are best seen to be moving when they are moving quickly, the picture poet will contrive that his horses shall always, as Homer says, devour the ground and his motor cars be ‘all out.’... Unity of plot—when there is a plot—does not, as some persons think, consist in the unity of the hero. It consists in the final dwelling together in unity of the hero and his bride. Final must be understood as posterior to the pursuit of the bride by other men, who may be either white or red. Red men are better, as more unbridled in their passions than white. As Æschylus first introduced a second actor in tragedy, so an American poet, whose name is too barbarous to be written in Greek, introduced the red man in picture drama....

“With regard to the hero and his bride, though their characters should, as in tragedy, be morally good (χρηστά), it is chiefly necessary that their persons should be kinematographically good or good on the film. For at every peripety of the action they must become suddenly enlarged by the device of the photographer, so that every furrow of the knitted brow and every twitch of the agitated mouth is shown as large as life, if not larger. It is, in fact, by this photographic enlargement that the critical turns of the action are marked and distinguished, in the absence of the tragic element of diction. Where the tragic actor talks big, the picture player looks big. Nevertheless, the element of diction is not entirely wanting. Sentences (which should comprise as many solecisms as possible) may be shown on the screen, descriptive of what the players are doing or saying. But the more skilful players habitually say something else than what is thus imputed to them, thereby giving the audience the additional interest of conjecturing what they actually do say in place of what they ought to have said.

... “Picture poetry is a more philosophical and liberal thing than history; for history expresses the particular, but picture poetry the not too particular. The particular is, for example, what Alcibiades did or suffered. The not too particular is what Charlie Chaplin did or suffered. But the moving pictures do to some extent show actual happenings, in order to reassure people by nature incredulous. For what has not happened we do not at once feel sure to be possible; but what has happened is manifestly possible; otherwise it would not have happened. On the whole, however, as the tragic poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities, the picture poet should go, as Agathon says, one better, and aim at improbable impossibilities.”...

MR. SHAKESPEARE DISORDERLY

At the meeting preliminary to “Warriors’ Day” I was wending my way along the corridor of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, when I encountered an amphibious-looking figure with the mien of one of Mr. W. W. Jacobs’s people, but attired in the classic tunic and sandals of a Greek of the best period. Knowing that the meeting was to include all sorts and conditions of theatrical men, I taxed him with being somebody out of _Orphée aux Enfers_ or _La Belle Hélène_. He said it was not a bad shot, but, as a matter of fact, he was a ferryman, “saving your honour’s reverence, name o’ Charon.” “A ferryman?” said I; “then you must be from the Upper River, Godstow way.” “No, sir,” he answered, “I ply my trade on the Styx, and I’ve brought over a boatful of our tip-toppers—our intelli-gents-you-are they calls ’em in the Elysian Fields—to this ’ere meetin’. Precious dry work it is, too, sir,” he added, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Where are they?” I asked in high excitement. “In this ’ere box, sir, where the management have allowed them to sit incog.” “And who, my good fellow, are they?” “Well, sir, let me see; there’s Mr. William Shakespeare, one of the most pop’lar of our gents and the neatest hand at nectar punch with a toast in it. Then there’s Mr. David Garrick, little Davy, as they calls ’im (though the other one, ’im who’s always a-slingin’ stones at the giants, isn’t no great size, neither), and there’s ’is friend Dr. Samuel Johnson, a werry harbitrary cove, and there’s Mrs. Siddons, an ’oly terror of a woman, sir, as you might say. Likewise, there’s Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Edmund Kean, both on ’em gents with a powerful thirst—just like mine this blessed mornin’, sir.” At this second reminder I gave him wherewithal to slake his thirst, directed him to the bar, and, as soon as he was out of sight, slipped noiselessly into the back of the box, where I hid behind the overcoats.

Mr. Shakespeare was beckoning Mrs. Siddons to his side. “Come hither, good mistress Sal” (this to the majestic Sarah, the Tragic Muse!), “and prythee, dearest chuck, sit close, for ’tis a nipping and an eager air, and poor Will’s a-cold.”

MRS. S.—Sir, you are vastly obleeging, but where’s the chair?

DR. JOHNSON.—Madam, you who have so often occasioned a want of seats to other people, will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself.

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—Marry come up! Wouldst not sit in my lap, Sal? ’Tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door, but ’twill serve.

MRS. S. (_scandalized but dignified_).—Sir, I am sensible of the honour, but fear my train would incommode the Immortal Bard.

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—Oh, Immortal Bard be——

MR. GARRICK (_hastily_).—I perceive, sir, a stir among the company. The gentleman who is taking the chair has notable eyebrows; he must be——

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—Master George Robey. I’ve heard of him and his eyebrows.

MR. G.—No, no, ’tis Sir Arthur Pinero, an actor-dramatist like yourself, sir.

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—Beshrew me, but I would hear the chimes at midnight with him and drink a health unto his knighthood. (_Sings._) “And let me the canakin clink, clink, and——”

THE HOUSE (_indignantly_).—Sh-h-h!

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—A murrain on these gallants! They have no ear for a catch and should get them to a monastery. But I’ll sit like my grandsire, carved in alabaster. Who’s the young spark, now speaking?

DR. J. (_shocked_).—The young spark, sir, is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

MR. SHERIDAN.—Egad! This reminds me of old times, but the young man is not a bit like my friend Prinny. And though _I_ managed Drury Lane, I never got Prinny on _my_ stage.

DR. J.—Sir, your Prinny never had so good a cause to be there. He only _thought_ he fought in the wars; but this Prince is a real ex-Service man, pleading for the ex-Service men, his comrades in arms. He has been a soldier, and not a man of us in this box but wishes he could say as much for himself. Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier; but he will think less meanly if he can help those who have. That is the very purpose of this numerous assembly.

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—Oh, most learned doctor, a Daniel come to judgment! I’ faith I am most heartily of thy mind, and would drink a loving toast to the young Prince and another to the ex-Service fellows, and eke a third to this—how runs it?—this numerous assembly. (_Sings._) “And let me the canakin clink, clink, and——”

THE HOUSE (_in a frenzy of indignation_).—Sh-h-h! Turn him out! (_Hisses._)

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—What! the “bird”! Well-a-day, this isn’t the first time they’ve hissed my Ghost.

MR. KEAN.—Sir, they’ve hissed _me_!

MR. SHAKESPEARE.—Ha! say’st thou, honest Ned! But thou wast a jackanapes to let thyself be caught with the Alderman’s wife and——

Mrs. S. (_icily_).—Mr. Shakespeare, there are ladies present.

MR. SHERIDAN (_whispering to Dr. J._).—But what does little Davy here, doctor? He has always been represented as very saving.

DR. J.—No, sir. Davy is a liberal man. He has given away more money than any man in England. There may be a little vanity mixed, but he has shown that money is not his first object.

At this moment Charon popped his head in at the door, pulling his forelock, and said, “Time, gen’lemen, time!” The house was rising and I took the opportunity to step back, unperceived, into the corridor. Mr. Shakespeare led the procession out, declaring that, as he had come in a galliard, he must return in a coranto, and offering to dance it with Mrs. Siddons, who, however, excused herself, saying that she knew no touch of it, though she had of old taken great strides in her profession. Dr. Johnson turned back, when half way out, to touch the doorpost. Mr. Garrick sallied forth arm-in-arm with Mr. Kean and Mr. Sheridan. “Egad!” chuckled Mr. Sheridan, “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy,” and subsequently caused some confusion by tumbling down the stairs and lying helpless at the bottom. When the attendants ran to his assistance and asked his name, he said he was Mr. Wilberforce. As they emerged under the portico the crowd outside raised a loud cheer, and Mr. Shakespeare doffed his plumed cap and bowed graciously to right and left until they told him that the crowd were cheering the Prince of Wales, when he looked crestfallen and called those within earshot “groundlings” and “lousy knaves.” As he jumped into a taxi, I heard him direct the driver to the “Mermaid,” when Dr. Johnson, running up and puffing loudly, cried, “A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity. But the ‘Mitre’ is the nearer. Let us go there, and I’ll have a frisk with you.” And as the taxi disappeared down Catherine Street, my ear caught the distant strain, “And let me the canakin clink, clink.”

SIR ROGER AT THE RUSSIAN BALLET

NO. 1000. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29TH, 19—.

_Saltare elegantius quam necesse est probæ._
SALLUST.

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had a great mind to see the Muscovite dancers with me, assuring me at the same time that he had not been at a playhouse these twenty years. When he learnt from me that these dancers were to be sought in Leicester Fields, he asked me if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be abroad. “However,” says the knight, “if Captain Sentry will make one with us to-morrow night, I will have my own coach in readiness to attend you; for John tells me he has got the fore-wheels mended.” Thinking to smoak him, I whispered, “You must have a care, for all the streets in the West are now up,” but he was not to be daunted, saying he minded well when all the West Country was up with Monmouth; and the Captain bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk.

When we had convoyed him in safety to Leicester Fields, and he had descended from his coach at the door, he straightway engaged in a conference with the door-keeper, who is a notable prating gossip, and stroak’d the page-boy upon the head, bidding him be a good child and mind his book. As soon as we were in our places my old friend stood up and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. He seemed to be no less pleased with the gay silks and satins and sarsenets and brocades of the ladies, but pish’d at the strange sight of their bare backs. “Not so bare, neither,” I whispered to him, “for if you look at them through your spy-glass you will see they wear a little coat of paint, which particularity has gained them the name of Picts.” “I warrant you,” he answered, with a more than ordinary vehemence, “these naked ones are widows—widows, Sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.” Thinking to humour him, I said most like they were war widows, whereon the good knight lifted his hat to our brave fellows who fought in the Low Countries, and offered several reflections on the greatness of the British land and sea forces, with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

Luckily, the Muscovites then began dancing and posturing in their pantomime which they call _Petrouchka_ and the old gentleman was wonderfully attentive to the antics of the three live _fantoccini_. When the black fellow, as he called the Moor, clove the head of his rival with the scimitar, the knight said he had never looked for such barbarity from a fellow who, but a moment ago, was innocently playing a game of ball, like a child. What strange disorders, he added, are bred in the minds of men whose passions are not regulated by virtue, and disciplined by reason. “But pray, you that are a critic, is this in accordance with your rules, as you call them? Did your Aristotle allow pity and terror to be moved by such means as dancing?” I answered that the Greek philosopher had never seen the Muscovites and that, in any case, we had the authority of Shakespeare for expecting murder from any jealous Moor. “Moreover, these Muscovites dance murder as they dance everything. I love to shelter myself under the examples of great men, and let me put you in mind of Hesiod, who says, ‘The gods have bestowed fortitude on some men, and on others a disposition for dancing.’ Fortunately the Muscovites have the more amiable gift.” The knight, with the proper respect of a country gentleman for classick authority, was struck dumb by Hesiod.

He remained silent during the earlier part of _Schéhérazade_ until Karsavina, as the favourite of the Sultan’s harem, persuaded the Chief Eunuch to release her orange-tawny favourite, Monsieur Massine, at which the knight exclaimed, “On my word, a notable young baggage!” I refrained from telling my innocent friend that in the old Arabian tale these tawny creatures were apes. He mightily liked the Sultan’s long beard. “When I am walking in my gallery in the country,” says he, “and see the beards of my ancestors, I cannot forbear regarding them as so many old patriarchs, and myself as an idle smock-faced young fellow. I love to see your Abrahams and Isaacs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry with beards below their girdles. I suppose this fellow, with all these wives, must be Solomon.” And, his thoughts running upon that King, he said he kept his Book of Wisdom by his bedside in the country and found it, though Apocryphal, more conducive to virtue than the writings of Monsieur La Rochefoucauld or, indeed, of Socrates himself, whose life he had read at the end of the Dictionary. Captain Sentry, seeing two or three wags who sat near us lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoak the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear that lasted until the Sultan returned to the harem and put the ladies and their tawny companions to the sword. The favourite’s plunging the dagger into her heart moved him to tears, but he dried them hastily on bethinking him she was a Mahometan, and asked of us, on our way home, whether there was no playhouse in London where they danced true Church of England pantomimes.

PARTRIDGE AT “JULIUS CÆSAR”

Mr. Jones having spent three hours in reading and kissing Sophia’s letter, and being at last in a state of good spirits, he agreed to carry an appointment, which he had before made, into execution. This was, to attend Mrs. Miller and her youngest daughter into the gallery at the St. James’s playhouse, and to admit Mr. Partridge as one of the company. For, as Jones had really that taste for humour which many affect, he expected to enjoy much entertainment in the criticisms of Partridge; from whom he expected the simple dictates of nature, unimproved, indeed, but likewise unadulterated by art.

In the first row, then, of the first gallery did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played he said it was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time without putting one another out.

As soon as the play, which was Shakespeare’s _Julius Cæsar_, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the scene in Brutus’s orchard, when he asked Jones, “What season of the year is it, Sir?” Jones answered, “Wait but a moment and you shall hear the boy Lucius say it is the 14th of March.” To which Partridge replied with a smile, “Ay, then I understand why the boy was asleep. Had it been in apple-harvesting time I warrant you he would have been awake and busy as soon as what’s-his-name, Squire Brutus, had turned his back.” And upon the entreaties of Portia to share Brutus’s confidence he inquired if she was not a Somersetshire wench. “For Madam,” said he, “is mighty like the housewives in our county, who will plague their husbands to death rather than let ’em keep a secret.” Nor was he satisfied with Cæsar’s yielding to Calphurnia’s objections against his going to the Capitol. “Ay, anything to please your wife, you old dotard,” said he; “you might have known better than to give heed to a silly woman’s nightmares.”

When they came to the Forum scene and the speeches of Brutus and Antony, Partridge sat with his eyes fixed on the orators and with his mouth open. The same passions which succeeded each other in the crowd of citizens succeeded likewise in him. He was at first all for Brutus and then all for Antony, until he learnt that Cæsar had left 75 drachmas to every Roman citizen. “How much is that in our English money?” he asked Jones, who answered that it was about two guineas. At that he looked chapfallen, bethinking him that, though a round sum, it was not enough to warrant the crowd in such extravagant rejoicing.

“I begin to suspect, Sir,” said he to Jones, “this Squire Antony hath not been above hoodwinking us, but he seemed so much more concerned about the matter than the other speaker, Brutus, that I for one couldn’t help believing every word he said. Yet I believed the other one, too, when he was talking, and I was mightily pleased with what he said about liberty and Britons never being slaves.” “You mean Romans,” answered Jones, “not Britons.” “Well, well,” said Partridge, “I know it is only a play, but if I thought they were merely Romans, and not Britons at heart, I should not care a hang about ’em or what became of ’em.”

To say the truth, I believe honest Partridge, though a raw country fellow and ignorant of those dramatic rules which learned critics from the Temple and the other Inns of Court have introduced, along with improved catcalls, into our playhouses, was here uttering the sentiments of nature. Should we be concerned about the fortunes of those ancient Romans were they utter strangers to us and did we not put ourselves in their places, which is as much as to turn them all from Romans into Britons? To be sure, while our imagination is thus turning them, it will not forbear a few necessary amendments for the sake of verisimilitude. For, to name only one particular, no free and independent Briton could imagine himself bribed by so paltry a legacy as a couple of guineas; but he can multiply that sum in his mind until it shall have reached the much more considerable amount which he will consent to take for his vote at a Westminster election; and thus honour will be satisfied. And the critics aforesaid will then be able to point out to us the advantages of British over Roman liberty, being attended not only with the proud privileges of our great and glorious Constitution, but also with a higher emolument.

Mr. Jones would doubtless have made these reflections to himself had he not, while Partridge was still speaking, been distracted by the sudden appearance in an opposite box of Lady Bellaston and Sophia. As he had only left her ladyship that very afternoon, after a conversation of so private a nature that it must on no account be communicated to the reader, he would have disregarded the imperious signals which she forthwith began making to him with her fan; but the truth is, whatever reluctance he may have felt to rejoin her ladyship at that moment was overborne by his eagerness to approach the amiable Sophia, though he turned pale and his knees trembled at the risk of that approach in circumstances so dangerous. As soon as he had recovered his composure he hastened to obey her ladyship’s commands, but on his entry into the box his spirits were again confounded by the evident agitation of Sophia, and, seizing her hand, he stammered, “Madam, I——.” “Hoity, toity! Mr. Jones,” cried Lady Bellaston; “do you salute a chit of a girl before you take notice of a dowager? Are these the new manners among people of fashion? It is lucky for my heart that I can call myself a dowager, for I vow to-night you look like a veritable Adonis, and,” she added in a whisper too low to be heard by Sophia, “your Venus adores you more madly than ever, you wicked wretch.”

Jones was ready to sink with fear. He sat kicking his heels, playing with his fingers, and looking more like a fool, if it be possible, than a young booby squire when he is at first introduced into a polite assembly. He began, however, now to recover himself; and taking a hint from the behaviour of Lady Bellaston, who, he saw, did not intend openly to claim any close acquaintance with him, he resolved as entirely to affect the stranger on his part. Accordingly, he leaned over to Sophia, who was staring hard at the stage, and asked her if she enjoyed the performance. “Pray, don’t tease Miss Western with your civilities,” interrupted Lady Bellaston, “for you must know the child hath lost her heart this night to that ravishing fellow Ainley, though I tell her to my certain knowledge he is a husband already, and, what is more, a father. These country girls have nothing but sweethearts in their heads.” “Upon my honour, madam,” cried Sophia, “your ladyship injures me.” “Not I, miss, indeed,” replied her ladyship tartly, “and if you want a sweetheart, have you not one of the most gallant young fellows about town ready to your hand in Lord Fellamar? You must be an arrant mad woman to refuse him.” Sophia was visibly too much confounded to make any observations, and again turned towards the stage, Lady Bellaston taking the opportunity to dart languishing glances at Jones behind her back and to squeeze his hand; in short, to practise the behaviour customary with women of fashion who desire to signify their sentiments for a gentleman without expressing them in actual speech; when Jones, who saw the agitation of Sophia’s mind, resolved to take the only method of relieving her, which was by retiring. This he did, as Brutus was rushing upon his own sword; and poor Jones almost wished the sword might spit him, too, in his rage and despair at what her ladyship had maliciously insinuated about Sophia and Mr. Ainley.

DR. JOHNSON AT THE STADIUM

I am now to record a curious incident in Dr. Johnson’s life, which fell under my own observation; of which _pars magna fui_, and which I am persuaded will, with the liberal-minded, be in no way to his discredit.

When I was a boy in the year 1745 I wore a white cockade and prayed for King James, till one of my uncles gave me a shilling on condition that I should pray for King George, which I accordingly did. This uncle was General Cochran; and it was with natural gratification that I received from another member of that family, Mr. Charles Cochran, a more valuable present than a shilling, that is to say, an invitation to witness the Great Fight at the Stadium and to bring with me a friend. “Pray,” said I, “let us have Dr. Johnson.” Mr. Cochran, who is much more modest than our other great theatre-manager, Mr. Garrick, feared that Dr. Johnson could hardly be prevailed upon to condescend. “Come,” said I, “if you’ll let me negotiate for you, I will be answerable that all shall go well.”

I had not forgotten Mrs. Thrale’s relation (which she afterwards printed in her “Anecdotes”) that “Mr. Johnson was very conversant in the art of attack and defence by boxing, which science he had learned from his uncle Andrew, I believe; and I have heard him discourse upon the age when people were received, and when rejected, in the schools once held for that brutal amusement, much to the admiration of those who had no expectation of his skill in such matters, from the sight of a figure which precluded all possibility of personal prowess.” This lively lady was, however, too ready to deviate from exact authenticity of narration; and, further, I reflected that, whatever the propensities of his youth, he who had now risen to be called by Dr. Smollett the Great Cham of literature might well be affronted if asked to countenance a prize-fight.

Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained for him, I was sensible that he was sometimes a little actuated by the spirit of contradiction, and by means of that I hoped I should gain my point. I therefore, while we were sitting quietly by ourselves at his house in an evening, took occasion to open my plan thus:—“Mr. Cochran, sir, sends his respectful compliments to you, and would be happy if you would do him the honour to visit his entertainment at the Stadium on Thursday next?” JOHNSON.—“Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Cochran. I will go——” BOSWELL.—“Provided, sir, I suppose, that the entertainment is of a kind agreeable to you?” JOHNSON.—“What do you mean, sir? What do you take me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what kind of entertainment he is to offer his friends?” BOSWELL.—“But if it were a prize-fight?” JOHNSON.—“Well, sir, and what then?” BOSWELL.—“It might bring queer company.” JOHNSON.—“My dear friend, let us have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry with you; but really it is treating me strangely to talk to me as if I could not meet any company whatever occasionally.” Thus I secured him.

As it proved, however, whether by good luck or by the forethought of the ingenious Mr. Cochran, Dr. Johnson could not have found himself in better company than that gathered round him in Block H at the Stadium. There were many members of the Literary Club, among them Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Gibbon, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Mr. R. B. Sheridan. A gentleman present, who had been dining at the Duke of Montrose’s, where the bottle had been circulated pretty freely, was rash enough to rally Dr. Johnson about his Uncle Andrew, suggesting that his uncle’s nephew might now take the opportunity of exhibiting his prowess in the ring. JOHNSON.—“Sir, to be facetious, it is not necessary to be indecent. I am not for tapping any man’s claret, but we see that _thou_ hast already tapped his Grace’s.” BURKE.—“It is remarkable how little gore is ever shed in these contests. Here have we been for half an hour watching—let me see, what are their names?—Eddie Feathers and Gus Platts—and not even a bleeding nose between them.” REYNOLDS.—“In a previous contest one boxer knocked the other’s teeth out.” SHERIDAN.—“Yes, but they were false teeth.”

At this moment the talk was interrupted by the arrival of the Prince. As His Highness passed Dr. Johnson, my revered friend made an obeisance which was an even more studied act of homage than his famous bow to the Archbishop of York; and he subsequently joined in singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow” with the most loyal enthusiasm, repeating the word “fe-ellow” over and over again, doubtless because it was the only one he knew. (“Like a word in a catch,” Beauclerk whispered.) I am sorry that I did not take note of an eloquent argument in which he proceeded to maintain that the situation of Prince of Wales was the happiest of any person’s in the kingdom, even beyond that of the Sovereign.

But there was still no sign of Beckett and Carpentier, the heroes of the evening, and the company became a little weary of the preliminary contests. A hush fell upon the assembly, and many glanced furtively towards the alley down which the champions were to approach. GIBBON.—“We are unhappy because we are kept waiting. ‘Man never is, but always to be, blest.’” JOHNSON.—“And we are awaiting we know not what. To the impatience of expectation is added the disquiet of the unknown.” GARRICK (_playing round his old friend with a fond vivacity_).—“My dear sir, men are naturally a little restless, when they have backed Beckett at 70 to 40.” REYNOLDS.—“But, see, the lights of the kinematographers” (we were all abashed by the word in the presence of the Great Lexicographer) “are brighter than ever. I observe all the contestants take care to smile under them.” SHERIDAN.—“When they _do_ agree, their unanimity is wonderful.” JOHNSON.—“Among the anfractuosities of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, that there is a morbid longing to attitudinize in the ‘moving pictures.’”

But at length Beckett and Carpentier made their triumphal entry. Beckett first, quietly smiling, with eyes cast down, Carpentier debonair and lightly saluting the crowd with an elegant wave of the hand. After the pair had stripped and Dr. Johnson had pointed out that “the tenuity, the thin part” in Carpentier’s frame indicated greater lightness, if Beckett’s girth promised more solid resistance, Mr. Angle invited the company to preserve silence during the rounds and to abstain from smoking. To add a last touch to the solemnity of the moment, Carpentier’s supernumerary henchmen (some six or eight, over and above his trainer and seconds) came and knelt by us, in single file, in the alley between Block H and Block E, as though at worship.

What then happened, in the twinkling of an eye, all the world now knows, and knows rather better than I knew myself at the moment, for I saw Beckett lying on his face in the ring without clearly distinguishing the decisive blow. While Carpentier was being carried round the ring on the shoulders of his friends, being kissed first by his trainer and then by ladies obligingly held up to the ring for the amiable purpose, I confess that I watched Beckett, and was pleased to see he had successfully resumed his quiet smile. As I carried my revered friend home to Bolt Court in a taximetric cabriolet, I remarked to him that Beckett’s defeat was a blow to our patriotic pride, whereupon he suddenly uttered, in a strong, determined tone, an apophthegm at which many will start:—“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel!” “And yet,” said Beauclerk, when I told him of this later, “he had not been kissed by Carpentier.”

MY UNCLE TOBY PUZZLED

“’Tis a pity,” cried my father, one winter’s night, after reading the account of the Shakespeare Memorial meeting—“’tis a pity,” cried my father, putting my mother’s thread-paper into the newspaper for a mark as he spoke,—“that truth, brother Toby, should shut herself up in such impregnable fastnesses, and be so obstinate as to surrender herself up sometimes only upon the closest siege.”

The word siege, like a talismanic power, in my father’s metaphor, wafting back my uncle Toby’s fancy, quick as a note could follow the touch, he opened his ears.

“And there was nothing to shame them in the truth, neither,” said my father, “seeing that they had many thousands of pounds to their credit. How could a bishop think there was danger in telling it?”

“Lord bless us! Mr. Shandy,” cried my mother, “what is all this story about?”

“About Shakespeare, my dear,” said my father.

“He has been dead a hundred years ago,” replied my mother.

My uncle Toby, who was no chronologer, whistled “Lillibullero.”

“By all that’s good and great! ma’am,” cried my father, taking the oath out of Ernulphus’s digest, “of course. If it was not for the aids of philosophy, which befriend one so much as they do, you would put a man beside all temper. He is as dead as a doornail, and they are thinking of building a theatre to honour his memory.”

“And why should they not, Mr. Shandy?” said my mother.

“To be sure, there’s no reason why,” replied my father, “save that they haven’t enough money left over after buying a plot of land in Gower Street to build upon.”

Corporal Trim touched his Montero-cap and looked hard at my uncle Toby. “If I durst presume,” said he, “to give your honour my advice, and speak my opinion in this matter.” “Thou art welcome, Trim,” said my uncle Toby. “Why then,” replied Trim, “I think, with humble submission to your honour’s better judgment, I think that had we but a rood or a rood and a half of this ground to do what we pleased with, I would make fortifications for you something like a tansy, with all their batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, that it should be worth all the world’s riding twenty miles to go and see it.”

“Then thou wouldst have, Trim,” said my father, “to palisado the Y.M.C.A.”

“I never understood rightly the meaning of that word,” said my Uncle Toby, “and I am sure nothing of that name was known to our armies in Flanders.”

“’Tis an association of Christian young men,” replied my father, “who for the present hold the Shakespeare Memorialists’ ground in Gower Street.” ’Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle Toby’s character that he feared God and reverenced religion. So the moment my father finished his remark my uncle Toby fell a-whistling “Lillibullero” with more zeal (though more out of tune) than usual.

“And the money these Christian youths pay for rents,” continued my father, “is to be used to maintain a company of strolling players” [Here my uncle Toby, throwing back his head, gave a monstrous, long, loud whew-w-w.], “who are to go up and down the country showing the plays of Shakespeare. Up and down, and that, by the way, is how their curtain went on twenty-two occasions in _Romeo and Juliet_.”

“Who says so?” asked my uncle Toby.

“A parson,” replied my father.

“Had he been a soldier,” said my uncle, “he would never have told such a taradiddle. He would have known that the curtain is that part of the wall or rampart which lies between the two bastions, and joins them.”

“By the mother who bore us! brother Toby,” quoth my father, “you would provoke a saint. Here have you got us, I know not how, souse into the middle of the old subject again. We are speaking of Shakespeare and not of fortifications.”

“Was Shakespeare a soldier, Mr. Shandy, or a young men’s Christian?” said my mother, who had lost her way in the argument.

“Neither one nor t’other, my dear,” replied my father (my uncle Toby softly whistled “Lillibullero”); “he was a writer of plays.”

“They are foolish things,” said my mother.

“Sometimes,” replied my father, “but you have not seen Shakespeare’s, Mrs. Shandy. And it is for the like of you, I tell you point-blank——”

As my father pronounced the word point-blank my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles, but my father continued:—

“It is for the like of you that these Shakespeare Memorialists are sending their strolling players around the country, to set the goodwives wondering about Shakespeare, as they wondered about Diego’s nose in the tale of the learned Hafen Slawkenbergius.”

“Surely the wonderful nose was Cyrano’s?” said my mother. “Cyrano’s or Diego’s, ’tis all one,” cried my father in a passion. “Zooks! Cannot a man use a plain analogy but his wife must interrupt him with her foolish questions about it? May the eternal curse of all the devils in——”

“Our armies swore terribly in Flanders,” cried my uncle Toby, “but nothing to this.”

“As you please, Mr. Shandy,” said my mother.

“Where was I?” said my father, in some confusion, and letting his hand fall upon my uncle Toby’s shoulder in sign of repentance for his violent cursing.

“You was at Slawkenbergius,” replied my uncle Toby.

“No, no, brother, Shakespeare, I was speaking of Shakespeare, and how they were going to carry him round the country because they had not money enough to build a theatre for him in London.”

“But could they not hire one?” said my uncle Toby.

“No, for my Lord Lytton said that would be too speculative a venture.”

“’Tis a mighty strange business,” said my uncle, in much perplexity. “They buy their land, as I understand it, brother, to build a house for Shakespeare in London, but lease it for a house for young Christians instead, and spend their money on sending Shakespeare packing out of London.”

“’Tis all the fault of the Londoners,” replied my father. “They have no soul for Shakespeare, and for that matter, as I believe, no soul at all.”

“A Londoner has no soul, an’ please your honour,” whispered Corporal Trim doubtingly, and touching his Montero-cap to my uncle.

“I am not much versed, Corporal,” quoth my uncle Toby, “in things of that kind; but I suppose God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me.”

LADY CATHERINE AND MR. COLLINS

Elizabeth and Charlotte were seated one morning in the parlour at Hunsford parsonage, enjoying the prospect of Rosings from the front window, and Mr. Collins was working in his garden, which was one of his most respectable pleasures, when the peace of the household was suspended by the arrival of a letter from London:—

“THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE,

“LONDON, _December, 19—_.

“DEAR COUSIN WILLIAM,—We have long neglected to maintain a
commerce of letters, but I have learned through the public
prints of your recent union with an elegant female from
Hertfordshire and desire to tender you and your lady my
respects in what I trust will prove an agreeable form. I am
directing an entertainment at this theatre, which is designed
to be in harmony with the general Christmas rejoicings, and,
you may rest assured, in no way offends the principles of the
Church which you adorn. Will you not honour it by your presence
and thus confer an innocent enjoyment upon your lady? In that
hope, I enclose a box ticket for the pantomime on Monday
se’nnight and remain your well-wisher and cousin,

“ARTHUR COLLINS.”

Smiling to herself, Elizabeth reflected that the two Messrs. Collins might certainly call cousins in epistolary composition, while Charlotte anxiously inquired if the proposal had her William’s approval.

“I am by no means of opinion,” said he, “that an entertainment of this kind, given by a man of character, who is also my own second cousin, to respectable people, can have any evil tendency; but, before accepting the invitation, it is, of course, proper that I should seek the countenance of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.” Accordingly, he lost no time in making his way to Rosings.

Lady Catherine, who chanced to be meditating that very morning on a visit to London for the purchase of a new bonnet and _pèlerine_, was all affability and condescension.

“To be sure, you will go, Mr. Collins,” said her ladyship. “I advise you to accept the invitation without delay. It is the duty of a clergyman of your station to refine and improve such entertainments by his presence. Nay,” she added, “Sir Lewis highly approved them and _I_ myself will go with you.” Mr. Collins was overwhelmed by civility far beyond his expectations, and hurried away to prepare Charlotte and Elizabeth for this splendid addition to their party.

Early on the Monday se’nnight they set out for London in one of her ladyship’s carriages, for, as Mr. Collins took the opportunity of remarking, she had several, drawn by four post-horses, which they changed at the “Bell” at Bromley. On the way her ladyship examined the young ladies’ knotting-work and advised them to do it differently, instructed Elizabeth in the humility of deportment appropriate to the front seat of a carriage, and determined what the weather was to be to-morrow.